Voyages through the Stars
by Thorthemighty321
Summary: After a merchant defense mission against Pirates goes awry. Akeno and several of her crew members are selected at random by a member of the Q Continuimm to have a chance at not only getting a second chance at life but also to become apart of something so much greater. What he didn't mention was that it was going to be anything but easy and simple...
1. The Darkest of Midnights

**AN: Alright, so I decided to rewrite the prologue for this thing in order to make it better and more digestible.**

 **For reference, the** _ **Samuel B. Roberts**_ **class Heavy Cruiser is smaller than a** _ **Galaxy**_ **class Exploration Cruiser but larger than an** _ **Ambassador**_ **class Heavy Cruiser.**

* * *

 _Stardate 514357_

 **Operation: MIDNIGHT**

 **Status - UNDERWAY**

Sol burns.

The entire Iconian Resistance were fighting their last stand, the failed Operation: Fracture, meant to end the war without using time travel has backfired. Now it was time for the final gambit to win the war, Operation: MIDNIGHT.

The ships of the Iconian Resistance were dying left and right, the vastly superior numbers and technology of the Iconian Heralds were taking their toll. But they weren't going quietly, for every Resistance ship that died in the cold and unforgiving vacuum of space, three to four Herald ships died. Even with that kill-to-loss ratio, the Resistance just didn't have the ship numbers to sustain those kinds of losses.

Combat was being waged in the gravity wells of the Gas Giants Jupiter and Saturn, with ships dying in droves as they fought in the shadow of the massive planets. In the asteroid belt, the Heralds and Iconian Resistance play a deadly cat and mouse game, weaving between asteroids and engaging in brutal knife fights. Over Mars, surface-to-orbit gun emplacements and orbiting defense stations work in tandem with numerous starships and defense drones to practically stonewall the Heralds. Over Luna, the Heralds had succeeded in landing in force and were clashing with ground forces while desperately fighting starships worked to prevent them from gaining orbital superiority. Over Earth, the Heralds had also succeeded in landing but they hadn't gained orbital supremacy because the surface-to-orbit gun batteries, orbital defense platforms, and the massive starbase that was Earth Spacedock.

Energy beams and torpedoes were being exchanged at rates that were quite frankly insane. It was to the point that the void was more energy beams and torpedoes rather than hard vacuum.

One of the many ships that were fighting and dying glided through the void of space like a predator with a length of 585-meters. The proud triangular saucer section flowed gracefully into a ventral stardrive section that at first glance could be mistaken for that of a _Intrepid_ class, but the warp nacelles were abeam with the stardrive section and weren't variable geometry. Emblazoned in black lettering was the ship's name and registry number: USS _Harekaze_ , NCC-1855-B.

Yet the ship was damaged, great gashes had been torn into her hull. The portside warp nacelle was flickering and leaving a trail of ghostly blue-white warp plasma in her wake. Her once pristine dark grey paint was tarnished and the stripes of crimson war paint that had adorned her saucer since commissioning now looked like bloody slashes, carbon scoring and craters from weapon impacts some new but several old marred it. Despite that however, the ship's heart still beat. From the ship's saucer mounted Type-X Phaser Arrays came six searing orange lances of nadions burst forth while from the forward warhead launchers that were still functional came six Quantum torpedoes.

The target, a distant Iconian _Yuxa_ class Destroyer, already hurting from the battering it had received from the massively more powerful Type-XII Phaser Arrays and twin Type-U+ Quad Phaser Cannons on the _Avenger_ class Battlecruiser _Princess Royal_ was sent reeling by the impact of six phaser beams as they punch past the thing's battered armor plating. Several gouts of fire erupted from the thing's hull as internal atmosphere ignites.

The torpedoes struck several seconds later and the subtype of the _Baltim_ class had it's bow completely eviscerated. Sending the destroyer tumbling through space, it's thrusters were firing frantically as the crew tried to regain control. They had just succeeded in doing so when ten phaser beams transected it's hull clean through it's beam. A moment later the fusion reactors blew followed immediately by the warp core, turning the ship into a short-lived star.

The source of those phaser shots was trailing nearly a five hundred thousand klicks behind the _Harekaze_ and _Princess Royal_. A massive starship that was eleven hundred seventy-five meters in length, an _Odyssey_ class starship, the flagship of the Federation Odyssey wing that the _Princess Royal_ and _Harekaze_ were apart of, the _Independence_. Flanking the behemoth was a _Thunderchild_ class Escort Carrier, the _Spearpoint_.

Like the _Harekaze_ , the _Independence_ , _Spearpoint_ , and _Princess Royal_ were all sporting heavy damage. The most notable of which being the fact that the _Spearpoint_ was missing a warp nacelle.

Phased Antiproton fire, harsh violet in color split the void, energy beams and packets racked across the _Princess Royal_ and the _Harekaze_ , their shields flaring as they struggle to keep out the lethal energies.

* * *

The _Harekaze_ shudders as lances and packets of heat, light, and radiation slam into her shields. "Captain, _Baltim_ raiders above us, six total, angling downwards." Mei calls from the tactical station, sounding simply exhausted.

Honestly, it wasn't surprising, ever since the failure of Operation: Fracture, we've all been run ragged. Fighting non-stop, no chance to do repairs for the last two weeks. The bridge showed it too; the two mission ops consoles were a wreck as was the astrogation console. "Mei, target the lead raider and fire at will!" Captain Suto Esumi, better known to Starfleet's Department of Temporal Investigations and the Galactic Union's Temporal Defense Initiative as Akeno Misaki, barks. The pain in her side flared as she took in a slightly too deep a breath, the expansion of her diaphragm aggravating her ribs which she was certain she had cracked at least two. She had thought that as being a Temporal Agent that dealing with Temporal Extremists was bad enough, but the Heralds were somehow even more annoying, difficult, and painful to deal with.

"On it!" Mei says as the dorsal phaser arrays thrums. Six lances of light shot forth and speared the lead pair of Raiders. It's shields flashes as they repel the phaser beams with ease.

"Conn, bring us about to heading zero-two-seven, up three-four!" Akeno orders as the phasers fire again, this time Mei's gunnery was off. Only four beams struck and the enemy ships wobble under the impact force, there shields visibly cracking.

"Yes ma'am!" The Tellarite at the helm station, Zoraann chim Dvond -called "Zora" by some members of crew- says in response, taping furiously on his display. The _Harekaze_ groans under Akeno's feet and starts to swing around onto a new course, more gravitas than what she normally expects from such a maneuver bleeding through to the bridge.

"Ops, get a damage control team to the bridge interia dampeners." She orders as the _Harekaze_ 's forward phasers fire again.

"On it, Captain." Lieutenant Commander Gidall Klok, Son of Krelt, part of House Gidall answers before hitting a key and speaking into his mic. "Damage Control to inertia dampener control one."

On the tactical hologram, the _Princess Royal_ adds her own fire against the incoming raiders, spearing one of the raiders with phaser beams and cannon fire from the ship's forward phaser arrays and twin-sets of quad phaser cannons. The firepower that the Battlecruiser could bring to bear is significantly greater then what the _Harekaze_ has at her disposal.

And it shows.

The raider that the _Princess Royal_ was targeting has it's shields break in seconds, the beams and energy packets rip into the Herald's hull. Secondary explosions ravage the ship, nothing the size of Iconian raiders _could_ withstand the sort of punishment that an _Avenger_ class Battlecruiser could unleash. With a brief flash, the raider disintegrates.

"Torpedoes incoming, the raiders are charging their main guns!" Mei calls as another salvo of phaser beams impacted the lead raiders. Finally cracking the shields, a moment later four Quantum torpedoes scream out of the number two launcher mounted on the saucer. While from the Heralds come a salvo of five torpedoes from each raider while their main guns begin to glow ominously.

More Federation weapons fire impact the flank of the Herald formation as the _Spearpoint_ and _Independence_ add their own fire. The eight beams from the _Independence_ 's Type-XV Phaser Arrays simply cause the targeted raider's shields to evaporate, the follow up strike from the _Spearpoint_ 's forward cannon batteries and arrays hits something critical and tears the two hundred fifty meter long craft in two.

Moments after that, the torpedoes from _Harekaze_ and the raiders fly past each other. Still converging on each other's ships.

"Bring point defense up, reroute power from aft to forward shields, all hands brace for imminent heavy impact!" Akeno barks, with the state that the _Harekaze_ was in, those spinal cannons would have little trouble ripping the ship apart. Of course, those torpedoes since they operated by creating an directed shockwave in subspace would deal some damage even with the shields up.

"Point-defense active!" Mei replies as the point-defense grid went active. From concealed positions on the hull, small dual turrets mounting a pair of Type-5U Phaser Pulse Cannons popped up, they target the incoming torpedoes and fire.

Bolts of orange light and radiation are thrown into void at surprising rates, rapidly creating a web of energy for incoming torpedoes to navigate. The Herald torpedoes took evasive action, with their maneuvers being solid, but against Federation point-defense turrets, they were insufficient. Harsh flashes of light erupt in the void as torpedoes were speared by orange-red energy bolts.

The forward phaser arrays thrum again, Mei had timed it perfectly to co-inside with the Quantum torpedoes impacting. One of the lead Raiders vanish in brief split second flash that bath their fellows in hard radiation and the other one develops a massive gaping hole near the main gun.

"Hell yeah!" Mei whoops gleefully.

"Nice work!" Akeno compliments with a smile on her face, as she braces herself for the quickly approaching heavy impact as she eyes the incoming dots that represented the enemy torpedoes, there was ten for both the _Princess Royal_ and _Harekaze_. The tactical diagram was showing the _Avenger_ class lighting up with point-defense fire as well. She has already come to the conclusion that they wouldn't be able to shoot them all down.

Then the herald raiders discharge their spinal guns, lances of fire big enough to swallow a shuttlepod scream across space. One shot smashes against the shields of the _Harekaze_ and the other two spear the _Princess Royal_. The Battlecruiser's shields flicker and then dim.

Not good.

"Shields down to twenty percent, three torpedoes remain, ten seconds to impact!" Mei shouts as she grips the edge of her console.

Akeno hits the shipwide intercom while toggling the collision alarm. "Hang on everyone!" she yells.

The point defense phaser gunnery team manages to swat down two torpedoes and then the third one smashes against the shields. With devastating results, the Herald torpedo unleashes a devastating subspace shockwave directly into the _Harekaze_ 's shields and only stop one of the many pulses. Ablative armor, outer hull, and inner pressure hull along the starboard side from decks four to six rips itself asunder, the atmosphere explodes out of the ship in that area before two seconds later the force fields engage thus sealing the hull breaches. Leaving utterly demolished decks and compartments behind, conduits and relays blew out bathing passageways in burning plasma and hot debris. Damage control teams rush to the affected area while wounded crew head towards medical.

There was the shotgun like _boom_ of a console exploding on the bridge. Deafening in it's noise level that makes Akeno's ears ring. Despite that however, it didn't block out Mei's scream of agony.

"I got gunnery control." Klok says loudly and the phasers thrum into being, spitting red-orange beams at the remaining raiders.

Akeno barely heard the Klingon over the buzzing in her ears, regardless she looked over her shoulder and spotted Mei lying on the floor, not moving, training from long ago took over and she went to quickly check on her. She had to suppress a shudder at the sight of the wounds that her Chief Tactical Officer and friend had suffered, but was relieved when she put her fingers to her neck and found a weak pulse.

The heat from the console's primary transformer exploding meant that Mei had suffered significant burns to her chest, back, and left arm, the right arm Akeno also noted was bent in a direction that she knew arms didn't bend. Mei's vacsuit had charred and appeared to have melted in some areas, fusing to her skin. The dozen or so new scuffs and chips in the paint means that it kept most of the shrapnel out, but she could see where it had failed to keep the shrapnel out it at least two locations as blood oozes out of the wounds.

Akeno taps her combadge immediately, it chirps in response. "Bridge, sickbay, I have a critical up here that has to be beamed directly to sickbay, second and possible third degree burns, shrapnel, and at least one broken bone!" she yells to be heard over the chaos, even from here she could tell that hit had caused some _major_ damage to the ship.

" _Roger._ " Chief Medical Officer Lieutenant Commander Tsuruoka Ryou, better known to Starfleet's Department of Temporal Investigations and the Galactic Union's Temporal Defense Initiative as Minami Kaburga, replies sounding frazed but surprisingly not exhausted.

Akeno looks at Klok who nods after a moment. "Ready for site-to-site beaming." he says.

"Energize!" She barks and Mei vanishes in a swirl of blue sparkles. Knowing that her friend is in good hands with Kaburga, she quickly comes up with a plan of action as she thought about those who was in succession for Chief Tactical Officer, after a moment she remembers who that is and taps her combadge again.

"Defense One, Bridge" Akeno says.

" _Defense One here, what is it Bridge?_ " The surprisingly eloquent voice of First Lieutenant Srirr of second watch replies.

"Lieutenant, your now acting Chief Tactical Officer and needed on the bridge." Akeno says quickly.

The line is silent for three seconds and then the Lieutenant says something in Cait that her universal translator refuses to elaborate on and then he spoke up again. "Got it captain, on my way." he replies.

"I got power fluctuations in phasers one and two." Klok growls before keying his console mic. "Damage control to gunnery one and two!"

Akeno was about to ask for a damage report when two torpedoes struck the _Princess Royal_ after slipping through her point-defenses and following the evasive maneuvers the battlecruiser was performing. The first torpedo detonates against the barest sliver of shields on the starboard side, the subspace shock wave causing the ship to visibly shudder as part of saucer near the ship's neck crumpled and came apart. Ablative armor, tritanium-duranium alloy hull plates, monotanium alloy armor plates, bulkheads, and decking all simply came apart as the blow sent the Battlecruiser's lights flickering.

The second torpedo struck near the wound opened up by the first torpedo. A noticeable ripple passed through the saucer, a considerable portion simply coming apart, before with a blinding flash a good two thirds of the saucer and neck vanish as the magnetic bottle on the fusion reactors for the starboard impulse drive blew. Sending the remains of the saucer section sailing into space and the stardrive spinning wildly before the later vanished as the warp core breached.

" _Dammit_." Akeno hissed out as the death flash from the _Princess Royal_ faded. The retaliatory phaser fire from the three surviving ships quickly cuts the surviving Heralds apart.

The death flash from the last Herald had just faded when the Turbolift doors hissed open and Lieutenant Srirr walks onto the bridge and the Caitian pauses at the threshold his ears folding back rapidly in astonishment, then he went to his new station.

"Transfering gunnery control back to tactical. Shields are regenerating, captain I have to say that we're lucky that were holding together as it is, considering that all of the repairs we've made since Operation: FRACTURE are just jury-rigs, structural integrity is down to only forty percent, part of phaser one is inoperable, of our torpedo tubes only two, three, and six are still operational, we got hull breaches across multiple decks, port side warp nacelle is trashed, the list just goes on. At this point it's probably easier to list what _doesn't_ need repairs." Klok replies.

Akeno sighs deeply "Zora, get us back to the _Independence_." she orders.

"Aye ma'am." he replies, tapping in the proper commands. Thrusters fire and impulse drive thrust exhaust is vectored, allowing the damaged ship to swing back to the _Independence_.

Akeno keys the comms line. " _Harekaze_ to Flag, we're coming back to take formation on your starboard side." she says tiredly.

" _Affirmative_ Harekaze _. We got reinforcements coming, a Dominion Battle Squadron composition, one battlecruiser, two heavy escorts, and six strike cruisers._ " Commodore Jacob "Jake" Callighan replies. Akeno notes that somehow unlike her, he sounds tired but not outright exhausted.

"Just a battlecruiser, two heavy escorts, and six strike cruisers? Begging the Commodore's pardon but what sort of difference is that going to make if the Heralds do another big push?" Akeno found herself asking, she knew that she may have been out of line.

Jacob apparently decided to not comment on her possibly being out of line. " _More than you think, the Dominion fight like bastards when it comes down to it and they aren't above underhanded tactics._ " he replies.

It made Akeno think back to the engagements that she had with the Dominion and realized that the Commodore was right in the fact that they weren't afraid to use underhanded tactics.

"Ah hell, Captain! We got a gateway opening, _Quas_ class from the looks of it!" Srirr says as an alarm wails.

" _not jegh qup Ha'DIbaH batlh!_ " Akeno hisses in response, slipping into one of her second languages.

" _Flag to_ Harekaze _, we'll engage that thing head on, I want you on the raider wolf pack that are bound to be with that thing,_ Spearpoint _, I want your fighters going after the enemy fighters as well as probes while supporting us with your cannon and arrays._ " The Commodore orders.

"Harekaze copies." Akeno replies, before turning to Srirr. "Srirr, put our phasers on random remod after every shot. If we're lucky we can find the correct frequency that their shields on."

"Yes ma'am." The bronze furred Caitian replies.

" _Spearpoint copies._ " The CO of the _Spearpoint_ replies.

Akeno chews her lip nervously as from the gateway, the intimidating form of a _Quas_ class Cruiser emerges along with about a dozen raiders, a destroyer, and a sizeable fighter swarm. The Iconian gun ports are already hot, glowing with malevenot energies.

There is a pause over the coms before finally the Commodore speaks. " _All units engage_." he says simply.

Immediately the _Independence_ lights up with phaser fire, dazzling beams tinged in the colors of the rainbow streak across the void while torpedoes shriek from the forward launchers as the massive dreadnought accelerates towards her foe. Apparently the Commodore had the same idea that she did, find the correct modulation to allow their weapons to pass through their shielding.

"Zora get us in close! Sriss, engage!" Akeno barks.

"Locked on, firing now!" Sriss growls as the _Harekaze_ rumbles to life and prowls forward. The forward phaser arrays thrum and beams lash out, setting the shields of our opponents aglow.

Phaser cannons and beams also tear into the _Quas_ which has since opened fire in earnest at the _Independence_ , but her CO has a good eye and the massive _Odyssey_ class is already outrunning the deadly spinal gun of the Herald Cruiser.

"One raider down, enemy fire incoming!" Sriss says as one raider has its front end shatter as a magazine blows and the Heralds are returning fire. Lethal phased antiproton fire streaking across the void, they impact against the _Harekaze_ 's shielding and set it aglow with energy.

"Zora come to port to zero-five-five, up two-seven. Sriss load Tricobalt torpedoes, send these bastards to hell!" Akeno snarls as the raiders move in, ready to tear the ship apart as her shields start to buckle. But the Heavy Cruiser gives no quarter as phaser fire and torpedoes takes down two more raiders in rapid succession.

"Tricobalts loaded, locked on target. Firing!" Sriss says as the _Harekaze_ seemingly screams in agony as the starboard shield facing buckles then collapses allowing antiproton fire to lace into her starboard nacelle, their is a dull yet thunderous boom and an alarm howls.

"Damage control to starboard nacelle!" Klok says after hammering a key on his console.

The return fire is brutal, phaser fire streaks out at the pair of raiders responsible for the hits from the dorsal and ventral saucer section arrays. The lead raider takes at least a dozen hits within as many seconds and it's shields collapse, the follow up salvo of phasers simply tear it apart. The ship vanishing in brief flash of light that's eye searing in it's intensity.

The forward launcher fires and a pair of gleaming white torpedoes scream forwards, streaking towards the enemy. Just before they impact, Sriss jabs the firing key and the phasers fire again and the shields of the second raider evaporate and a half second later the tiny vessel vanishes in a pair of brief but dazzling blue-white explosions.

Suddenly the spinal gun on the _Quas_ fires and the _Spearpoint_ vanishes from the plot and immediately afterward the Commodore swears loudly almost in tandem with Akeno.

 _That Dominion battle squadron better get here quick or else there won't be anyone else to reinforce._ Akeno thinks as the _Harekaze_ rocks as a new alarm blares. "Forward and starboard shield facings down!" Klok barks.

"Emergency power to shields!" Akeno says in response as antiproton beams spear the damaged ship and it quakes in sympathy. In response the phasers thrum again and a raider disintegrates under the hammering blows.

"Rerouting!" Klok responds tapping frantically before his console beeps at him and he curses quite creatively in the three or so languages that he knows. "The forward shield emitters are struggling to build any percentage worth a damn and the starboard emitters are completely fried! I don't know how much more of this we can take!" he says.

Akeno already knew the answer to that question and it was "Not much". Regardless the partial loss of shielding was bad. "Get damage control down there, we need those shields or we're screwed!" She says.

"On it." Klok replies before jabbing a key on his console. "Damage control to Shield Control One and Three."

Just when Akeno thought that it couldn't get any worse, it did when one of the departments delivered more bad news.

" _Bridge, Ordnance, be advised we are down to fifteen, repeat one-five Quantum torpedoes and we are down to five repeat five Tricobalt torpedoes after that all you'll have left is phasers._ " The flat stoic voice of a Vulcan, a name that Akeno couldn't place says.

"Dammit!" Akeno growls under her breath as the _Quas_ class burns under the unrelenting barrage from the _Independence_ , the ship fires a spread of five torpedoes. Panicky counter-fire from the _Quas_ manages to swat two and the remaining three impact. The big Herald warship erupts, debris getting thrown out at incredible velocities as _something_ detonates within it's hull, but the ship is still fighting despite being effectively crippled.

"Five raiders and the destroyer are left, they are firing!" Sriss says as the remaining six Heralds fire and the _Harekaze_ quivers as energy beams smash into her and a spread of torpedoes shrieks towards them.

The point defense fire lights up the void of space. "Zora defensive pattern Kirk Lamada Three!" Akeno orders.

"On it ma'am." The tellerarite replies frantically typing in commands. The Heralds fired their spinal guns and _Harekaze_ seemingly screamed in agony as the beams carved deep gashes through the ship with a scream of twisting metal, a massive beam sheared and crashed to the deck as a sizable portion of the saucer was scoured by the beams. The howl of pain from Chief Petty Officer First Class Aynur Yakupov told Akeno that he had likely been hit by falling debris.

"Medical team to the bridge!" Akeno calls out.

The phasers thrum once again and one of the raiders has it's bow laid open to space while the other has one of it's protrusions sheared off and a moment later a pair of Quantums shriek out of the two fore tubes. The distinctive blue energy jackets screaming across the void of space as they home in on their targets.

"I can't swat all the torpedoes our point-defense has been heavily degraded, their maneuvering for proximity detonations!" Sriss says frantically as he taps away on his console.

"Just down as many as you as can!" Akeno says in a growl as _Harekaze_ quivers as the raiders score additional hits with their antiproton beams, something crashes to the floor behind her with a roar. She could tell that the _Samuel B. Roberts_ class Heavy Cruiser was on the verge of coming apart. The phasers thrum once more and an explosion erupts from the hull of the raider that had a protrusion blasted off that opens up at least half the decks on the portside forward to vacuum.

Then both raiders get hit by Quantums, one has it's front end shatter and the other vanishes in a core breach. The _Spearpoint_ 's surviving strike craft, a mixture of _Peregrine_ class Strike Fighters, _Gryphon_ class Aerospace Superiority Fighters, _Javelin_ class Bombers, and _Yellowstone_ class Runabouts are swarming around two of the Raiders which are frantically spitting fire trying to swat the angry bees around them. One raider is having it's hull blacken and buckle under the intensity of fire that the fighters are putting out despite it's shields while the other is desperately trying to disengage from the enraged swarm.

"Fifteen seconds till torpedo impact!" Sriss yells as he swats another torpedo, two left, he taps out more commands and the forward phasers fire again, beams of energy skewer the destroyer and it's shields flare but hold firm.

In retaliation the destroyer rakes the _Harekaze_ with energy beams and the heavy cruiser rocks _hard_. The two torpedoes were flying in, the phaser turrets were desperately trying to get them.

Suddenly concentrated bolt of purple fire speared one of the torpedoes and then a flurry of beams and energy bolts streaked in as the Dominion warships dropped out of warp and engaged the surviving Heralds, the _Quas_ flew apart within seconds and the raiders were in the process of being torn apart.

A moment later the last incoming Herald torpedo detonated.

For Akeno at least, she remembered being knocked off her feet and hitting something followed by blackness for a moment. When she came too, she could tell the damage was catastrophic. The _Harekaze_ shook violently suddenly and more sparks and damaged conduits tore from the ceiling and fell to the deck. "Report!" she croaked out as she stood up.

"We're crippled ma'am. The torpedo proximity detonation caused the starboard nacelle to crumple like a tin can, so even though the warp core does still work we can't generate a stable warp bubble. To make matters worse the only part of the shield system that still works is the fore shields, navigational deflector still works somehow, and main life support has failed leaving us on auxiliary life support only. Phaser one and two along with torpedo tube two still work but I can't tell you how long they'll last and forget about point-defense, remaining phasers, and torpedo tubes three and six." Klok reports as the ship groans.

"Great" Akeno mutters she's about to key ship-to-ship comms when _another_ gateway opens and out comes a major Iconian force centered on a massive spindly battleship, two Cruisers, and a pack of thirty raiders being led by five destroyers.

The remaining active ships react with breathtaking speed. The _Independence_ blazes with phaser and torpedo fire as she attacks the battleship while alreadying taking evasive action to evade that massive spinal gun. Right behind her, the Dominion Battlecruiser also adds it's own fire, phased polaron beams spearing the inky midnight of space, the Dominion Heavy Escorts go for the Iconian Cruisers while the surviving fighters and Dominion Strike Cruisers engage the raider pack.

But already there is a break away from the engagement as bolts and lances of light along with torpedoes fly about the inky black. A single raider has managed to break free of the furball and begins bearing down on the crippled _Harekaze_.

"Sriss, what sort of condition is that raider in?" Akeno asks quietly as she eyes the incoming Iconian.

"It's shields are torn up badly and it's spinal gun has been knocked out, along with one of the forward warhead launchers, and it's aft warhead launcher. We can take it on, but we have got to be careful." Sriss replies, his tail flicking back and forth nervously.

Akeno took a deep breath, this would be _Harekaze_ 's last ride. The name _Harekaze_ had a lot of history in Starfleet, the original ship to bear that name had been at Caleb IV, participated in several first contacts, and was destroyed at Wolf 359, the second ship had served in the Dominion War and had been destroyed by the Tal Shiar while on a mission of mercy into the Romulan Star Empire after the Hobos Supernova. She just wished that the third ship to bear the name could live up to the others.

"Klok, led off with a spread of tachyon bursts, Sriss send the bastard to hell." she said.

"Tachyon bursts ready, engaging." Klok says quickly after tapping his console and hitting the execute button. The deflector dish glowed then started flashing, bolts of blue light flew across the void and impact the raider causing it's shields to erupt into dazzling light.

"Locking on target, locked on, firing." Sriss said and the phasers thrum to life, four dazzling beams of light fly across the void and spear the raider.

The raider retaliates immediately, streams of phased antiprotons impact the _Harekaze_ 's shields and set them aglow. The raider is unrelenting in it's fire and keeps up the fire rapidly weakening the shields. Sriss hammers the firing key and more phasers streak out of the emitters.

"Forward shields at fifteen percent and falling." Klok announces as the cruiser shakes under the impact of more beams.

"Remodulate our shields! Status on enemy shields?" Akeno barks.

"Remodulating!" Klok replies as he taps in commands on his console.

"Enemy shields at twenty percent and falling." Sriss reports as the forward phasers fire again.

The raider yawed hard to port and cut across their beam, still spitting fire at the _Harekaze_. Akeno's eyes widened as she realized what it was trying to do.

"He's trying to out flank us, Zora keep our bow pointed at him if you can!" she barks.

"Working on it, but I am not sure if I can keep him on our forward arc." Zora replies as the phasers thrum again.

"Enemy shields on the verge of buckling!" Sriss whoops as the phasers impact and the enemy shield develops visible cracks.

"Torpedoes!" Akeno calls.

"Locked on target, firing!" Sriss replies as three torpedoes scream out of the forward tube and the torpedoes bear down on the raider.

Suddenly their is a flash of light and energy, the raider vanishes from the _Harekaze_ 's forward arc and rematerializes on her starboard flank. "Shit!" Zora yells before frantically maneuvering trying to get the raider back in the forward arc.

Then the _Harekaze_ shudders and quakes. "He's aiming for antimatter containment!" Klok growls out.

"Zora try and shake him off, Sriss hit him if you can!" Akeno orders quickly as more beams tear into the _Harekaze_ 's wrecked hull.

"He's in the arc of the ventral saucer array, got a lock, firing!" Sriss replies and the ventral phaser thrum. Searing lances of light spear the raider and it's shields collapse immediately.

"Reading a power build up, he's likely going for a beam overload!" Klok reports.

"That's not good, Zora roll ship make antimatter containment as hard of a target as possible!" Akeno orders quickly.

"Hang on!" The telleraite answers and the ship groans as it rolls, to give the raider trouble.

A lance of energy stronger than the previous ones bursts from the raider and smashes into the stardrive, compromised armor, bulkheads, and decks provides barely any resistance. Numerous secondary explosions light up the ship as internal atmosphere ignites, ringing detonations tear through the ship.

"Heavy damage sustained across decks twelve through twenty across multiple sections, structural integrity critical!" Klok reports as the ship bucks from the internal explosions.

"Target his reactor, Sriss overload the emitters, dump everything you can into the phasers!" Akeno orders.

"Overloading emitters, locked on, firing!" Sriss replies as an alarm screams its cry as the phasers fire again, the amount of power had wrecked the focusing matrixes. But it was worth it, three lances of nadions each vastly more powerful than a standard blast streak out and smash into the raider. It vanishes in a pulse of light and radiation to the cheers of the bridge crew.

" _Bridge, Engineering! We got a problem here, that last hit dealt major damage to us, we're in crisis mode! We're losing antimatter containment, warp core breach in five minutes!_ " The hearty rumble of Chief Engineer Boggs says.

 _Shit, not good._ Akeno thought before keying the intercom. "Attention all hands, this is the captain, I am declaring General Order 13. All hands abandon ship, I repeat all hands abandon ship." she says tiredly, a new alarm wails.

Almost immediately afterwards, the voice of CMO Ryou came from Akeno's combadge. " _Ryou to Esumi._ " she says.

Akeno tapped her combadge. "Esumi here, go ahead doctor." she says.

" _We got too many wounded to feasibly evacuate on the shuttles, too many criticals that we can't move and too many who can't move under their own power._ " Ryou says in a firm tone.

 _Shit._ Akeno thinks before replying. "I'll contact the commodore, according to the tactical hologram the enemy has been driven back for now, the _Independence_ should have the space for our ship's wounded."

" _Got it, I start preparing for a mass transport._ " Kaburga replies.

"Affirmative, Esumi out." Akeno says and the line goes dead.

" _Boggs to Esumi._ " The rumbling voice of her ship's Chief Engineer emanates from combadge. Akeno's hand flies up and taps the combadge again. "Esumi here, what is it Chief?"

" _I talked it over with everyone down here, we're not evacuating. We're going to buy as you as much time as possible, the core_ is _going to breach and we can't stop it but we'll buy you as much time as possible by handling new occurrences as they happen._ " He rumbles.

Akeno starts to reply with a protest about how they'll be all killed but squashes it and goes for a different reply. "Thanks Chief f-for everything. I don't know where I would be without you."

Boggs chuckles deeply. " _I don't have a clue ma'am. Probably dead or on a ship stranded in deep space._ "

"Probably, take care Chief." Akeno replies, getting misty eyed.

" _You too, Boggs out._ " The line goes dead.

Akeno keys the ship-to-ship coms. " _Harekaze_ to flag." she says.

" _Flag here, go ahead_ Harekaze _._ " Commodore Callighan replies.

"Commodore we've had it, our reactor is going to breach and Chief Engineer Boggs says he can't stop it. We're abandoning ship but almost everyone in sickbay either can't walk without assistance and too many in critical condition to evacuate. Think you can beam them over, sir?" Akeno asks.

" _There's no enemy presence within weapons range, sure we can do it._ " The commodore replies.

"Thank you, sir." Akeno replies before tapping her combadge. "Esumi to Ryou." she says.

" _Ryou here, go ahead captain._ "

"Is your staff and the various casualties prepared for site-to-site beaming?" Akeno asks.

" _We're ready as we'll ever be._ " Ryou replies.

Akeno takes in a deep breath, the pain from her cracked ribs flaring up as she keys the ship-to-ship comms once more. "Harekaze to flag, we're ready."

" _Affirmative, on your signal._ " The commodore replies.

"Energize!"

" _We got them!_ "

Akeno closed her eyes and exhales in relief, jabbing pain from her ribs flared but at this point she didn't care. A good portion of her crew had just been whisked away to safety. Now herself and the bridge crew had to escape the dying _Harekaze_.

"Let's get out of here." she says and the surviving members of the bridge crew file off the bridge, Akeno is the last to follow. Before she leaves the bridge, she looks one last time at the bridge. A tangled mess of blown out consoles, fallen support beams and conduits, as well as a small fire litter the bridge.

"Come on ma'am. We have to go." Klok says when he notices Akeno looking back at the mangled bridge.

"It just feels like we're leaving home is all. She was a good ship, got us through a lot of tight-scrapes. It's painful knowing that we won't ever set foot on her again." Akeno replies.

"I know, but we have to go now otherwise we won't be able to sing our praises of the ship." Klok says and Akeno sighs before following, passing through the security checkpoint that led to the bridge. Down a passageway and through a hatchway that slid open, continuing down that passageway until they came to the pair of escape pods for the bridge crew.

It's telling that both lifepods have well short of their full capacity. Akeno waits until the last person from the bridge crew that isn't her climbs aboard and then she steps aboard as well. She sits down, straps herself in and then the hatch seals. The RCS system that the pod is equipped with rumbles and the pod breaks away from the _Harekaze_ 's saucer section.

The aft hatch is equipped with a holographic viewscreen which snaps on after a moment. Akeno could make out several other tiny pinpricks of light pulling away from the dying cruiser, other escape pods that were burning hard for minimum safe distance.

Suddenly, the _Harekaze_ vanished in a searing nova of light, heat, radiation, and dust as antimatter containment failed allowing several hundred kilograms of antihydrogen to connect with the inner wall of the antimatter storage units. Unseen by anyone else in the dim escape pod, silent tears ran down Akeno's face as she mourned the loss of her ship.

One thing that should be noted is that escape pods while they are very durable, they can't withstand weapons fire. Another thing is that once launched, the onboard computer handles almost all of the maneuvering, particularly during the landing sequence. Lastly, the sensor suite on escape pods while decent enough were only really usable for finding landing zones and evading debris when given ample warning.

Given the furball's intensity it meant there was a _lot_ of debris that could be problematic to the pod if it hit it. Thus it was no surprise that suddenly the pod's thrusters fired to evade what had been the stern of a _Yellowstone_ class Runabout and unknown to the occupants, wound up in the path of another piece of debris.

"Well Captain," Zora begins, his tone filled with bemusement. "This is another _fine_ mess that you've gotten us into."

Akeno growls in response. "I am _not_ in the fucking mood Zoraann."

The Tellarite for his part is wise enough to drop the bemusement when he speaks again. "Sorry ma'am, it's just well, we _do_ have a tende-" he starts say and then he's gone.

One moment Zora, Sriss, and a noncom were sitting at the "bottom" of the pod in relation to Akeno and Klok. The next that entire side of the escape pod suddenly disappears with a brief but exceptionally loud scream of tritanium-duranium alloy shearing as its ripped away causing the internal atmospheric pressure to drop away to nothing in less than a second as it vented into space. Akeno's vacsuit seals instantly upon detection, the helmet closing around her and with a muted hiss the oxygen feed engages.

 _Why, why does this always happen to me?_ Akeno thought as the computer brought the pod's tumble to a halt. For the first time in her rather odd life, Akeno wished that she could be back in her original universe or at the very least her original timeframe in this universe, the 23rd Century, she cursed the day that she ever met Q.

Despite herself, the memories that had led up to this moment snuck up on her and she embraced them as she sought to remember how she had gotten here and just like that, she found herself in the past.


	2. In a massive pinch with Pirates

**AN: I guess the question you're all asking is how did Akeno and Mei get to the Prime Universe? Don't worry your questions will be answered in due time.**

* * *

 _Near the Strait of Malacca_

 _April 28th, 2025_

 _Onboard the_ Samāgeiru

Truth be told, Akeno couldn't believe that despite everything that had happened last year, that she wasn't commanding something like a Heavy Cruiser this year. As it stood the _Samāgeiru_ or Summer Gale, was basically a member of the _Dōnsukūru_ class of the Destroyer, she was big and powerful, coming in at 410 feet long, with 37 foot beam, and a draft of 13 feet, for armament she had no less than six 5in/54 caliber Mark 16 Dual-Purpose Guns -something that was rather common on these ships-, ten torpedo tubes in two quintuple launchers, four 25mm Type 96 AT/AA Guns, and depth charge throwers and racks.

Not that Akeno was complaining, after hearing about the headaches that often ensued from commanding such big ships. Being able to command a relatively small ship again was something that she was eternally grateful for. Today she was standing on the bridge wing and letting the spray of the sea decorate her face as the the _Samāgeiru_ knifed through the waters near the southern mouth of the Malacca Strait at fifteen knots.

"Sure is a nice day, eh captain?" Mashiro asked calmly.

"It is Shiro-chan, this is what becoming a Blue Mermaid is all about. Being able to go out and see the world, experience new cultures, meet new people, etc. It's _fun_ , particularly when we don't have half of the Blumers chasing after us because of a Totalitarian Plague infection that got into our instructor." Mashiro said.

Rin laughed out loud. "Yeah! It sure is, as it stands though. I don't get why they decided to give us this shiny new destroyer despite the fact that the _Harekaze_ was being repaired and would've been ready to sail a week after everyone else? I wouldn't have minded waiting an extra week." She said.

"I looked into that and well, one of the damn six-inch shells scored a direct hit on a turbine and caused it destroy itself and you don't even _want_ to know what that 18-inch projectile did to the _Harekaze_ below decks. The more they did the initial tear down, the more damage that they found. At this point they aren't sure if they want to scrap her or do something else with her." Akeno said shaking her head.

"Damn shame then, _she_ got us through so much. At the very least they should memorialize the event and turn her into a museum. It was certainly note worthy enough and a big enough threat to the world." Mashiro said with a note of sadness in her voice.

"Don't forget our captain, who knows how things would've turned out if she hadn't been commanding. She got us out of a lot of bad situations with just some quick thinking and in some cases clever tactics." Mei said giving Akeno a smile.

"Yeah, I don't know what would've happened. But, I assure you that when it comes to making quick decisions, I am always worried that I'll make the wrong one and the consequences of said choice will be anything but good." Akeno said shaking her head.

"Don't worry about it Captain. You've gotten us this far and we will follow you even into the jaws of death and the depths of hell." Mashiro said calmly.

"Thanks, that means a lot to me." Akeno said smiling slightly before glancing at the Chronometer. "Mashiro the bridge is yours, I am going to get some feeling back in my legs." she said.

"Okay Captain, the bridge is mine." Mashiro intoned and then Akeno left the bridge.

Akeno walked down the ladder that lead from the bridge and onto the main deck of the _Samāgeiru_ , she was an absolute beauty of a ship. Her heavy armament and incredibly quick top speed of thirty-eight knots just complimented her sleek and graceful lines. Still, she didn't have the same small time charm that the _Harekaze_ had.

That wasn't saying she didn't like the _Samāgeiru_ , on the contrary she loved the ship. Her turbines and boilers were brand new as well everything else, which made sense because the ship was brand new. It was fitting, mainly because the _Harekaze_ while she had charm had been nearly ten years old and thus her engines had been rather cantankerous and was prone to popping steam lines at random at least once a day without fail. But that wasn't a problem on board the _Samāgeiru_ , not one bit, in fact it was the exact opposite, her steam lines were nice and tight.

Akeno walked up to the rail, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, letting in the salty air. To her, it was the smell of home and that was the truth, she loved the ocean. More so than any place else on the planet, yet it was also sad for her parents had died at sea as well, in a sense apart from her crew, which she cared about like family, the sea was the only family that she had left.

The question was though, when had that started happening? When had she started to realize that the sea was her home? The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it had probably began to happen after enrolling at Yokosuka Maritime Girls High School, probably after the rescue mission they had done. Still why was she feeling that while it had remained simple for this semester she had this feeling in her gut that sooner or later something was going to happen and that it would cause _everything_ to go horrifically wrong.

 _But_ all things considered, it hadn't happened yet and as an added bonus the end of the semester was nearly upon them and nothing had happened yet. Heck, within three days they were expected to arrive in Singapore for a quick stop to restock and resupply, then start the return trip back to Yokosuka.

The fact that it had been quiet actually made Akeno happy. Even if she did have to diffuse a number of practical jokes between members of the crew and the fact that her crew had picked up an interesting amount of slang after restocking and resupplying in Cavite, the home base of the USN's Asiatic Fleet as well as the United State Navy's Junior Naval Academy's Asiatic Flotilla. It was enlightening with all of the various knowledge that her crew had picked up, mainly how to become masters at the jury-rig repair. That had been interesting, although several members of her crew had learned that it was usually a bad idea to piss-off a Bosun Mate, particularly a Chief Bosun Mate.

Yet the bad feeling that she had with something bad happening was accurate.

* * *

 _Forty-five Nautical Miles North of the_ Samāgeiru

 _April 28th, 2025_

 _The MS_ Ore Brasil

The Motor Ship _Ore Brasil_ was absolutely _massive_ , in fact the word massive didn't even _begin_ to describe how huge this monster was. In terms of the length the _Valemax_ Bulk Carrier was bigger than the famed American Nuclear Powered Battleships as well as _far_ heavier than said ships. Plus it _showed_ , with a deadweight tonnage of an absolutely astounding 402,347 tons and she could carry 67,993 tons of Iron Ore. With a length of 1,187.7 feet overall combined with a draft of 99.7 feet, a beam of 213.3 feet, and a moulded draft of 75.5 feet she certainly was huge. But the ship was also approaching the absolute end of her service life, in fact this was her last voyage carrying a cargo of Iron Ore from Brazil to China. After this voyage the ship was either going to be sold to a ship-breaking company or sunk as an artificial reef.

However the _Ore Brasil_ like all merchants even today were extremely vulnerable to pirates, because they had very limited in terms of defensive options. Usually stuff like high-pressure water hoses, high temperature water walls, sound cannons, laser dazzlers, and small security teams; it wasn't much for protection.

The fact that the massive cargo vessel was in an area where piracy was common. The ship's thirty-three strong crew was on edge, particularly considering that there were rumors going around about a new Pirate group that was supposedly operating small little warships that were like gunboats or patrol vessels in size in the area instead of the usual Dhow with an outboard motor and a few RPGs, these modified submarine chasers were usually armed with two small deck guns and a couple of machine guns. Plus they had a crew that was capable of overpowering the small security teams that were usually onboard.

Part of the problem that ships like this were becoming a problem was because of how quick and how small they were. Another problem was that the ships of the various navies that patrolled this area couldn't be everywhere at once. Thus by chance, five of the new pirate sloops came upon the _Ore Brasil_.

When her captain spotted the threat, the ship quickly sent out a distress call and accelerated to her maximum speed of fifteen knots in attempt to buy time for any responders to have a chance to reach the lumbering giant and her pursuers in time.

Brief stabs of fire and smoke bloomed across the bows of three of the ships. With a screeching roar, plumes of water danced near the massive container ship as shells landed. In response the freighter began zigzagging in an attempt to throw the firing solutions off. Yet her pursuers were anything if not persistent and kept up the chase of the massive ship without fail, but there fire was desultory and not very accurate. However if this continued, they could force the monstrous bulk carrier out of the main shipping lane and then she would be at risk of running aground.

But, not everything could go for the _Ore Brasil_ forever. She was only a merchant ship after all and not to mention she was quite large. Thus it wasn't long before the first hits were scored on her, the first shell that slammed into the enormous Ore Carrier cleaved into the base of her funnel, punched through it with ease and then exploded between the funnel and the rest of the superstructure.

The ship didn't even so much as quiver, from neither the shell impact nor the detonation of the shell itself. Her mass was simply so great, that it would take much more punishment than the small 76mm single purpose gun forward on the small pirate sloops could dish out to sink her. But then again, that wasn't their objective, there objective was to disable the ship, board it, detain the crew, and make off with as much Iron Ore as was possible.

* * *

 _Onboard the_ Samāgeiru

Akeno was just beginning to stride onto the bridge and caught a part of an interesting conversation that Kouko was holding with the rest of the bridge crew. "So you're utterly convinced that we're not alone in the galaxy and that there is in fact many _other_ universes out there?" Mashiro asked in a stumped tone.

"Yes, considering all of the stars that one can see in the night sky, it would stand to reason that at least one has a planet inhabited with intelligent life. Earth can't have been a fluke in being able to support intelligent life, considering all of the stars that are in the Milky Way Galaxy it's impossible to think that the Earth is the only planet that has intelligent life on it." Kouko replied cheerfully.

"Kouko, I am not sure about _intelligent_ life on other planets. But all things considered and how life can adapt to survive or even thrive almost any environment on the planet. I wouldn't be surprised if there is extraterrestrial life out there in some form." Akeno said shaking her head.

"Captain, you can't seriously believe that?! There is no way life can exist anywhere else but on Earth!" Mashiro said in a stunned voice.

"I don't know Mashiro, I mean considering that we had to deal with hamsters that carried a virus that subverted one's will. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that life exists elsewhere." Rin replied cheerfully.

"Alright, still Kouko can you explain the logic behind what basically sounds like a "multiverse" idea?" Mashiro asked.

"It was just something I came up with in my spare time. In essence each universe is different and has it's own series of events. One such difference could be that instead of us just forcing _Hiei_ to run aground, we actually sank her with one of our torpedoes. Thus causing a chain of events that's different from the ones that we went through." Kouko said.

At first no one really knew how to answer that question. Not even the ship, for her blower suddenly became muted as she was pondering the answer to that question as well.

"Now that you put it that way Kouko, I guess you could be right. Just a tiny event turning out differently could have drastic effects on the resulting series of events that's different than the ones we went through." Mashiro admitted.

"Still what would that result in?" Mei asked confused.

"I dunno." Tama said shaking her head.

"Got me." Rin said shaking her head.

"An alternate reality then?" Akeno asked in confusion.

"I guess, yeah you could say that. Still, something like that is interesting to think about. Hell, something like that would probably make for a really good fanfiction piece if it could be written." Kouko said.

Unknown to any members of the bridge crew, standing on the bridge behind Rin was man. Yet despite being invisible he was also intangible as well and was only noticed when he wanted to noticed. The purpose that this man had was simple, he'd become curious about this dimension and to be more specific, this one dimension's Earth. He had always found humans to be interesting to observe for a variety of reasons, mainly because they were clever, tenacious, ferocious fighters, not to mention curious and inquisitive. He was known to Starfleet as the being Q, capable of bending space, time, and reality itself to his whims; not to mention observe the flow of time and how the future will play out. But he was also capable of traversing the multiverse but when doing so he had to be wary, mainly because well there were other extra dimensional beings who didn't take kindly to a being like Q jumping around between universes.

But the reason he was onboard the _Samāgeiru_ was simple. He saw something that he could use, there were several members of this ship while they didn't know it, their destinies were rapidly coming upon them. But in his mind, those several crew members weren't ready yet to face their destinies and in fact their destinies weren't even in this universe's timeline. Not when they had _so_ much potential to become the sort of people that Starfleet could use in the coming trials, that is if they could _get_ to that dimension. Which was something he was willing to provide but in order to do so they would have to give up their current lives in this dimension forever. A small price to pay, because the adventures they would have they would remember for the rest of their lives.

That's when the whistle for one of the speaking tubes went off. " _Captain! We're picking up a distress signal!_ " Tsugumi voice's barked sharply a moment later.

Immediately the cheerful tone that was on the bridge _vanished_ in a heartbeat, as Akeno watched the faces of her bridge crew hardened. It was time to get to work and it was something that the crew of the _Samāgeiru_ did very well.

Akeno went over to the speaking tube. "What do we got Tsugumi?" she asked.

" _The distress signal is coming from the MS_ Ore Brasil _. They are currently under attack by pirates and are requesting immediate assistance. Their coordinates are currently,_ " Tsugumi replied then rattling off a set of coordinates. " _She's currently making fifteen knots. The Royal Singaporean Frigate_ Stalwart _is responding, but it'll take her at maximum speed one and half hours to get their._ "

Mashiro and Rin went to the chart table and quickly did some calculations. "We can get there in roughly thirty-five minutes Captain, if we go to flank-speed. After that, we'll have to engage those guys for roughly an hour until the _Stalwart_ arrives." Rin said looking up from the chart table.

Akeno pondered that, they could most certainly buy time for the _Ore Brasil_ to escape. But the question that she wanted to know was how well armed the raiders were and more importantly how many of them where there. She needed to know that information desperately.

"Tsugumi! Contact the _Ore Basil_ , tell them that this is the Yokosuka Girls Maritime Highschool Ship _Samāgieru_ and that we acknowledge your distress signal and are responding. Estimated arrival time thirty-five minutes, what's the enemy force disposition as well as enemy armaments?" Akeno barked sharply. "Rin bring us about to compass bearing 287, make your speed three-seven knots!" she said.

"Right, making my course 287 aye! Making my speed three-seven knots, aye!" Rin said as she spun the ship's wheel and moved the Lee Helm from "Ahead one-third" to "Ahead flank".

For several brief moments it seemed like the _Samāgieru_ was coiling up like a serpent as a quiver ran through her decking, the ship seemed … _eager_ , Akeno noted to stretch her legs. Then those moments were over, the blower roared like a Tiger, the stern "sat down", the screws bit into the water, and then the ship shot forward. The ship surging forth proudly, quickly gaining speed, her thrashing screws kicking up a rooster tail, the flag waving at the fantail went from waving calmly in the breeze to being snapped taut.

It felt good to be responding to a distress signal, a ship and crew at risk from pirates. It brought back a feeling of pride as they raced to the rescue that wasn't dissuaded easily. This was what they lived for, it would be apart of their job after all once they became Blue Mermaids; hunting pirates. Might as well get some good "live" experience while they had the chance.

Still, regardless Akeno couldn't shake this feeling that something bad was brewing. The problem was, she couldn't tell _what_ it was and it was making her nervous. Despite that, well she was looking forward to actually being in battle for once, mainly because absolutely _nothing_ of interest had happened thus far over the course of the semester. She'd already been forced to defuse a couple of pranks and practical jokes already as the boredom levels of the crew reached new heights. So some action would actually be a good thing, mainly because it was needed.

But, she realized that perhaps the Pirates wouldn't run away at the sight of her ship. Maybe it would be good to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. But pirates were a unique bunch when it came to fighting them, sometimes they would turn-tail and run other times they would stay and promptly fight to the death. Akeno was _hoping_ that just the arrival of the _Samāgeiru_ would be enough to drive the _Ore Brasil_ 's assailants off. But if that wasn't the case, she knew that should have to be ready to fight.

She went to the ship wide speaking tube and took a deep breath. "All hands to your action stations! All hands to your action stations! Set traffic down and aft on the starboard side, up and forward on the port side! Set watertight condition Zeta throughout the ship! Stand by for possible external hostile contact and incoming wounded!" she barked authoritatively.

A few moments later, the sound of a horribly off-key bugle started playing. To which the sounds of shoes began thundering against metal decking as everyone ran to their action stations while with heavy _clangs_ bulkhead doors were slammed shut and promptly sealed. The bridge crew meanwhile traded their hats out for helmets and donned ballistic vests, because if they were going to get shot at the enemy was going to be using live ammunition and thus it would be best to be safe than sorry.

" _Engineering manned and ready for action!_ " Maron reported.

"Main Battery manned and ready!" Tama said as she got a report from the main battery gun team.

"Torpedoes manned and ready!" Mei said as got a report from her two torpedo operators.

" _Deck division manned and ready!_ " Wazumi barked authoritatively; one of the things that Akeno had done was that she had folded the galley staff into the damage control team and had assigned Toumatsu to be Kaburagi's assistant during combat.

" _Medical manned and ready!_ " Kaburagi said.

"All divisions manned and ready for action, captain!" Kouko said as she looked at her iPad as the last of the division heads sent an electronic signal once they were manned and ready.

Akeno glanced at the pocket watch she had pulled out of a pocket as she stopped it. _Well, well; I guess thanks to all of the boredom the crew has a lot of energy. We just set, I think a new school record for going to battle stations._ She thought with a smile and then turned to Kouko. "Kouko, make a note in the ship's log. Time for all battle stations to be manned and ready for action took eighty-three seconds. Have that transmitted to the school and ask if we've set a new school record for destroyers." Akeno said.

"Yes captain!" Kouko said with a grin. Truth be told, it was well justified mainly because they finally had something worthwhile and they had probably just broken a school record. Thus she had good reason to be happy and so did Akeno.

Still the feeling that Akeno had that something was going to go horribly wrong just wouldn't go away, no matter how much she willed for it to go away it just wouldn't leave her be.

" _Captain, we've received word on the attackers from the_ Ore Brasil _. They got five hostile sloops attacking them, judging by the flag and ship coloration they think they are members of The Nightmare Buccaneers. The ship themselves appear to be armed with a single Soviet AK-726 3in gun forward but they aren't sure about other armaments, but they did say to expect at least a couple of machine guns and maybe a couple of guys who think they are hotshit armed with RPGs._ " Tsugumi said through the speaking tube.

"Affirmative, any injured yet?" Akeno asked.

" _Yes Captain. Out of the eight-man security team onboard they have three dead and two injured, one severely. Out of the_ Ore Basil's _crew, they got six injured, two severely, and three dead. The lifeboat has been smashed, the exhaust stack no longer looks like an exhaust stack, and they've lost one of the auxiliary diesel engines. They think that they are trying to disable them, but are afraid to sink the ship, which means they want her cargo._ " Tsugumi said.

Akeno shuddered, the Nightmare Buccaneers; that meant this was going to be a heavyweight fight because they _always_ used heavy sloops armed with old Soviet kit. The Nightmare Buccaneers were feared in this area for their tenacity and ruthlessness in fighting against foes as well as how they captured cargo ships. They had no-qualms of killing the crew, making off with as much of the goods as they could, and then scuttling ship; they often didn't leave survivors from their strikes either. Plus, even the Royal Singaporean Navy didn't like tangling with them for obvious reasons, they had a small navy to begin with and you _never_ engaged the Nightmare Buccaneers and came out the other end without damage, injured crewmembers, and only _sometimes_ no one dead.

That meant they had a fight on their hands, because the Nightmare Buccaneers were rarely crowed by the appearance of warships and if anything had even _engaged_ them in battle on occasion. Granted it didn't normally end well for them but the point stood, they weren't going to run when they showed up and they would have no qualms about sinking them either.

"Mashiro, authorize use of live ammunition. We're going to need it when we arrive to relieve the _Ore Brasil_." Akeno said calmly, she didn't like the idea of being forced to shoot to kill. But training shells tended to be rather useless against ships although torpedoes were another matter, you didn't escape damage when you had something that weighed three tons slamming into the side of your ship at sixty knots, even with the majority of the force of the explosion being diverted away from the impact point, the damage that the _Sarushima_ had suffered from the impact and detonation of the training Type 93 F3 Torpedo had been incredible, it had caused stress fractures to form throughout the entirety of the hull and had nearly sent the _Independence_ class Littoral Combat Ship to the bottom; as it stood the damage had resulted in the ship getting scrapped.

"You sure about live ammunition, Captain?" Mashiro asked nervously, mainly because Akeno rarely if _ever_ used her actual name. Whenever she did however, that told her that it was serious.

"Positive, the _Ore Brasil_ is under attack from the Nightmare Buccaneers. As you heard, but the Nightmare Buccaneers won't hesitate to fire on this ship with live ammunition. Plus, since they aren't like other pirate groups that will run away at the sight of a warship but instead will stand their ground long enough to get a couple of hits in before disengaging. We must reply with lethal force of our own if we are to stand a chance against them, they won't hesitate to sink us. Plus we already enroute and if we're going to have even a _chance_ of stopping those pirates we have got to use live ammunition." Akeno said in a tone that clearly stated that she didn't like it, but it was something that needed to be done.

Mashiro sighed deeply, she knew that Akeno was right. "Alright, I agree to the authorization of live ammunition."

As one, both Akeno and Mashiro pulled a small necklace off their necks, on the necklace was a small key. In order for live ammunition to be authorized, both the Captain and Deputy Captain had to insert and then turn them simultaneously.

"Ready?" Akeno asked, looking at Mashiro in the eyes.

"Ready." Mashiro said with icy steel in her voice.

"Insert!" Akeno barked and the two of them inserted their keys together. There was a soft click.

"On three, ready?" Akeno asked.

"Ready." Mashiro affirmed, her gaze as hard as Mt. Fuji and her voice as her as steel.

"One, two, three!" Akeno said and then together they turned their keys. There was a muted click and the deed was done. The ship's drum autoloaders for the main battery guns began cycling out the training rounds and cycled in the live rounds from the magazine.

Regardless, the fact that Akeno was leading her crew into a fight that would like make the action against the _Musashi_ last semester look pathetic. Mainly because this was against ships that were probably smaller, more maneuverable, and while probably not as well armed their weapons were more modern. Plus their crews were ruthless and wouldn't hesitate to sink the _Samāgeiru_ in a heartbeat. She was going to need every last ounce of wit that she had at her disposal if she was going to win.

* * *

 _MS_ Ore Brasil

The situation aboard the _Ore Brasil_ was getting critical, the ship's stern was heavily chewed up by 76mm shell fire from the five pirate sloops, the other two auxiliary engines had been destroyed and the main engine had been severely damaged limiting the ship to only seven knots sustained, the exhaust stack had finally collapsed its remains were now somewhere on the bottom of the Strait of Malacca, and to make matters worse two of the sloops were angling for the ship's portside and were getting ready with the skiffs to send boarding parties aboard.

Her captain glanced at his watch and sighed. Aid wasn't going to be arriving in time, what's worse is that the Nightmare Buccaneer sloops had been incredibly accurate in their gunnery and had managed to nail the exact areas where the security team had been, meaning all that was left to defend the ship was just the crew.

"All hands, this is the captain. Stand by to repel boarders." Her captain ordered grimly. This was going to be a massacre, no doubt about it. His crew wasn't trained enough to fend off pirates and while firehoses and hot-water walls were decent. Most of _those_ had been severely damaged by enemy gunfire. But he would be damned if his ship fell without a fight of that he was damn sure.

"Captain! Look!" Someone shouted and pointing wildly at something.

The old captain pulled a set of binoculars to his weathered face and gazed in the direction that the younger seaman was gesturing. What he saw made him smile as hope blossomed within his chest. Racing towards the _Ore Brasil_ at flank speed was a destroyer, her low and slender hull proved that, so much so that at first glance one would mistake her for a _Kagerō_ class Destroyer. But she wasn't, while her hull and pilothouse her remarkably similar to that class, there were differences.

Mainly in that the pilothouse was a little shorter and a little wider, also the gun director was different in shape and size, not to mention the shape of the gun turrets themselves was different, they were larger but still retained the rectangular shape of Japanese Destroyer gun turrets. But there was no doubting the ship, it was clearly a _Dōnsukūru_ class Destroyer and she represented one thing.

Hope.

* * *

Akeno gazed through the binoculars as the enemy ship spotted her own vessel and promptly changed course increasing speed to intercept her ship. It had the nightmare black and indigo blue paint scheme that was distinctive of the Nightmare Buccaneers, the thing was small and displaced a thousand tons _at most_ , she could tell even from this distance that it had a 76mm AK-726 dual mount in the bow, a funky 57mm twin gun mount aft, roughly amidships behind the exhaust stack was what had to be a heavy autocannon of some kind, there was also a couple of machine guns as well. It was a rather typical pirate sloop that was in use near Somalia, the Pacific, and the Strait of Malacca after the "Armored Fleet" incident.

Those ships had at most a 50mm armored plate over the machinery spaces, which could defeat standard high-explosive shells, but it couldn't defeat the Semi-Armor-Piercing Rounds that everyone now used in their 5in and 3in guns unless the round struck at an odd angle. Regardless this didn't bode well, that gun had a little over double the rate of fire of the main battery of the _Samãgeiru_ did.

The TBS crackled and a harsh and heavily accented voice snarled something in, Akeno was certain was Vietnamese. "Any idea what he said?" she asked as she picked up the receiver.

"Couldn't get much due to the accent, but he basically told us to "fuck off and leave them to do their thing or face the consequences." Although, he used a lot more curse words and managed to string it, ah in an interesting way too." Mashiro said obviously taken aback by the harsh language that the pirate had directed at them.

"Right, okay Mashiro your my translator; I can't speak Vietnamese at all and I only know a few words in the language as in just enough to get by." Akeno said.

Mashiro nodded in response.

"Attention MS _Ore Brasil_ , this is the Captain Akeno Misaki of the Yokosuka Maritime Girls High School ship _Samāgeiru_. We're willing to lend aid, attention Nightmare Buccaneer ships. Break off any and all hostile action against the _Ore Brasil_ now or you will be fired upon. This is your _only_ warning." Akeno said in an authoritative and commanding voice.

The response from the lead Nightmare Buccaneer ship was interesting, the angry stream of expletives, insults, and death threats was incredible. Mashiro whistled at the angry stream that came from the TBS. "Well, first he identified himself as a Captain Bludfist and he said at least five things that I've been told that in various trade languages is extremely rude, insulted your parents, swore to torture the crew that survives him and his fleet blowing the _Samāgeiru_ to death and then feed the remains to fish, vowed to engage and destroy _any_ Yokosuka Maritime Girls High School ship that enters "his territory" just because you decided to interfere, he also managed to somehow squeeze the word "fuck" or a variation of that word at least ten times into that reply; I am willing to bet that the answer is "no."." she said shaking her head.

"How rude." Tama said in a flat tone.

"Right then, so _much_ for diplomacy. Tama you got a solution on the closest Sloop?" Akeno asked calmly.

"Aye." she replied.

"Then send our reply to "Captain Bludfist" if you please." Akeno said putting air quotes up around the pirate captain's name.

"Aye," Tama replied before turning to a speaking tube. "Main battery, commence firing." she said.

The forward 5in gun turrets twitched and then traversed, gun barrels rising, shells loading. Then they fired, the twin gun mounts spat fire and smoke, hurling a pair of shells toward the lead sloop. The shells hadn't even landed when the guns reloaded and fired again. The first two rounds bracketed the pirate sloop, throwing a pair of water columns high enough into the air that it utterly drenched the deck.

The sloop's forward gun mount swung around. "Rin evasive maneuvers!" Akeno barked.

A moment later, the dual 3in gun mount began cycling rounds. Shells began shrieking and splashing as the rounds landed near the rapidly maneuvering destroyer.

"Rin, bring us around, we need to get the rest of the main battery in play." Akeno ordered as the _Samāgeiru_ quivered as a round punched through the head of the ship without exploding.

"Hai!" Rin replied and swung the ship around, the two aft turrets swung around and then six guns ripple fired in unison. The enemy sloop shuddered as a pair of brilliant flashes exploded against its hull, one round blotted the heavy autocannon mount from existence and the other round punched into the hull and exploded. The sloop didn't even slow.

Suddenly the _Samāgeiru_ rocked violently as another sloop entered the fray, it's twin forward mount throwing steel at the destroyer. "Tama, have gun mount two focus on the new guy." Akeno ordered as six guns spat steel in unison the reports a heaving crash that one felt in your chest.

Several seconds later a brilliant flash erupted on the horizon as six shells slammed into the pirate sloop and tore it's guts apart in four brilliant explosions. The hostile began to settle as flames took the ship within it's deadly grasp. "Hostile 1 down!" Mei whooped as the pirate sloop began to list, clearly out of the fight.

Moments later the ship quaked as if struck by and earthquake and the glass on the bridge shattered inward. "Sonofa! We're hit! The classroom's on fire!" Kouko yelled.

"Damage control to the classroom!" Akeno said over the ship wide speaking tube before saying. "Never thought I'd have to say that."

"Main battery, switch fire to hostile 2, commence firing!" Tama ordered as the _Samāgeiru_ lurched again as a loud _bang_ sounded through the ship's hull as another 3in round detonated within the ship's hull.

The three main battery turrets traversed as more shells ripped into the the _Samāgieru_ and the ship quivered in sympathy. But Akeno knew her crew, they had been baptized by flames that were far greater than this. The three main battery turrets commenced firing, throwing lethal munitions down range.

Looking through the binoculars, she watched as the first salvo bracketed the other sloop. The ship turned into the incoming fire and the first and second salvoes missed completely and then the forward gun mount spat fire and smoke and did so quickly as it began to cycle rounds and the all too familiar shriek of shells raced in.

"Hard to port!" Akeno barked as the ship quivered under her feet.

The main battery spat steel again and then the ship shuddered as several projectiles speared the ship's hull and detonated. Akeno swore as she heard a loud _crump_ behind her as a shell detonated.

She brought her binoculars up as the guns spat steel again and five plumes of water erupted around the sloop and one shell smashed into the forward gun mount where it exploded. The gun mount blew itself apart in a fantastic fireball that sent one of the gunbarrels easily thirty feet into the air, then moments later with a thundering explosion that sent a visible shockwave through the air and caused the forward most thirty feet of the sloop to vanish in a brilliant and fiery display.

"Hostile two destroyed! Let's go get the other three!" Mei announced with glee.

"Aye!" Tama confirmed as she gazed at the burning and sinking wreck.

"Kouko damage report! Rin, bring us about to course 025! Tama commence firing as you please!" Akeno ordered sharply.

"Hai!" Rin and Tama said.

"Damage control reports that they got the fire in the classroom under control. However we also got a half dozen holes in the side, the head of the ship has been utterly decimated by a pair of direct hits and the galley has suffered a hit as well." Kouko said sharply.

Akeno swore under breath. "Any flooding?" she asked.

"A little, but only because the water is slapping in the holes created by those shells. We also got a number duds in our hull, which means when the _Stalwart_ gets here and relieves us we are going to need help from any EOD specialists that are onboard to get rid of those shells." Kouko replied.

"Great, well that is just _perfect_! Anything else I should be aware of?" Akeno asked as the three remaining sloops began to angle away from the _Ore Brasil_ and towards the _Samāgeiru_ , it was obvious that they were mad and wanted to destroy the _Samāgeiru_ badly enough that they weren't going to continue their attack against the lumbering Ore Carrier but instead focus their efforts on destroying the _Samāgeiru_.

"Captain, we may have bitten off a bit more than we can chew." Rin muttered as the three sloops opened fire, before Akeno could even bark out orders Rin sent the destroyer through a wild series of maneuvers obviously designed to try and break firing solutions.

"I know, which is why Tama I want you to have the main battery target either the waterlines and command decks of the enemy ships. Mei, let's dump our fish, those things are just explosive hazards on the deck. Rin, keep up evasive maneuvers." Akeno ordered sharply.

"Hai!" They all replied.

The next few minutes were rather hectic, because Akeno had to make sure that they got themselves between the _Ore Brasil_ and the pirates before they could hope to launch torpedoes, mainly because the monstrous ore carrier couldn't hope to avoid torpedoes. She was just too massive to move quickly and if a torpedo, particularly the live ones that the _Samāgeiru_ was carrying hit the the _Ore Brasil_ in one of her holds, the sudden weight shift was bound to tear her right in two.

"We're in position!" Rin shouted as they finally got into a position to launch their fish.

"Mei, commence attack!" Akeno yelled to be heard over the continuous blasting away of the main battery, the shierk and splash of incoming shells, and the shuddering of the ship from near misses and hits.

Mei grinned savagely. "Torpedo mounts 1 and 2! Fire in salvo! Torpedo mount one: Fire one, fire three, fire five, fire seven, fire nine! Torpedo mount two: Fire two, fire four, fire six, fire eight, fire ten!" she shouted after a minute and a rippling line of shrieks as compressed air forced the larded torpedoes out of their tubes and into the water.

An instant later an enormous _boom_ convulsed the ship and she shuddered as if struck by an angry god. "Report!" Akeno bellowed as she scrambled to her feet.

Kouko's voice was low and filled with sorrow. "Torpedo one took a direct hit. The mount has been completely blown apart, it's gone." she said.

 _Godfucking damnit! These bastards are gonna pay!_ Akeno thought angrily as the main battery voiced its displeasure and it's wrath at one of her crew members being snuffed out. "Rin, bring us about to bearing 015, let's show these bastards what we're made of." Akeno ordered.

"Hai!" Rin said and spun the ship's wheel and the _Samāgeiru_ answered like a rumrunner quickly and easily comin around to her new course and the main battery guns swung around just as the enemy ships began maneuvering wildly as they obviously spotted the torpedoes that were knifing towards them. For one of the ships it became obvious that it had started evading far too late, for a glorious plume of water erupted along its flank and the mighty warhead of the Type 93 blew the pirate sloop clean in half.

That's when the TBS crackled. " _This is the Royal Singaporean Frigate_ Stalwart _! Nice work_ Samāgeiru _, we'll take it from here! Your cleared to disengage!_ " An authoritative voice said.

Akeno grasped the TBS talker. "Affirmative _Stalwart_ , we a-" she started to say but never got to finish what she was saying.

A 3in High-Explosive round with a little over 1.5 pounds of high-explosive slammed into the gun director that was situated above the bridge; an instant later the round exploded.

The devastation that ensued was catastrophic, the detonation of the round created a surge of hot steel that spread out in all directions at several hundred feet per second. The lightweight splinter protection that surrounded the bridge was comprised by the hit itself and as a result allowed a storm of steel to slash into the bridge. Akeno felt a deep and horrifically painful burning sensation explode across her shoulders, chest, back, arms, and torso; the pain was so intense that she couldn't even scream in pain for it became her very existence. She slumped to the deck of the bridge along with the rest of the bridge crew, blood pooling beneath her. Thanks to positioning she couldn't see the rest of the bridge crew, but something told her that she didn't want too.

The _Samāgeriu_ quaked violently as yet another shell (or was it shells?) slammed into the destroyer. The pain though was slightly weaker, but still blinding and at the sametime a cold, numbing sensation was spreading across Akeno's extremities already she had lost all feeling in her feet, hands, her lower legs, and forearms. She took in a breath, it was incredibly painful the fiery pain that went lancing across her chest as if trillions of white hot needles pricked her skin with the motion. Darkness was starting to creep into the edges of her vision as all feeling in her limbs vanished.

A heaving overpressure raced over her as the destroyer's main guns fired. Then the ship quivered and shook in sympathy as she was hit yet again. The main battery barked out a ragged salvo and then the ship was hit again and the rapidly dimming world turned white.

* * *

The commander of the _Stalwart_ could only watch in horror as the _Samāgeiru_ took hit first to her bridge, followed quickly by gun mount two getting blown apart, then even as the ship lurched away from the pirate formation clearly out of the fight, the ship took several more hits that ignited the forward magazine. The entirety of the bow and roughly half of the pilot house dissolved in a brilliant and absolutely thunderous explosion. The shattered remains quickly had their decks awash, a few scattered crew members managed to get above decks and leap into the water in a desperate bid to get clear of the ruined ship that was rapidly sinking.

Despite that, more shells slammed into the rapidly sinking hulk, with another brilliant conflagration, the aft magazine for the rear turrets touched off and the ship _vanished_ underneath that second fireball.

"Weps, get me a missile solution! Four missiles per ship! We're going to blow those bastards out of the water!" The captain of the _Stalwart_ shouted. The reason they hadn't used the Harpoons at long range was because they were more likely to home in on the _Ore Brasil_ rather than the pirate sloops.

" _Captain, how? The_ Ore Brasil _is too close, our missiles will hit her instead of the raiders._ " The chief weapons officer replied in CIC.

"Guide them in on a radar beam!" The captain snarled as the two remaining sloops, which looked rather chewed swung around and began to advance on the _Stalwart_.

" _Done! Got a lock, birds away!_ " Weps replied as the bow of the _Stalwart_ became bathed in fire and eight Harpoon Antiship missiles threw themselves clear of the launchers. The missiles homed in on the ships that were painted by the radar and were frantically maneuvering and that's when the missiles went active.

The lead sloop took five missiles and blew up with such force that the ship turned into confetti that was scattered all over the place amid a massive thunderclap boom that the rattled the windows even from thirty kilometers away.

The other ship took three missiles and had her bow violently blown off with such force that it broke the ship's back and cast flames over a full two thirds of the vessel, some of the crew were abandoning her but others seemed to be racing aft.

The Captain of the _Stalwart_ was about to offer the marauder a chance to surrender when the 57mm gun mount aft traversed and opened fire, the rounds fell well short of the ship, but regardless it was clear what there choice was.

"Weps, put that fucker out of his misery." The _Stalwart_ 's CO ordered.

" _Yes sir!_ " The weapons officer replied.

A moment later the 76mm Super Rapido naval gun rose and with a rapid fire _bang_ -klink began cycling rounds. The first burst of five rounds fell short with only one round exploding against the sloop's side. The second burst of five rounds was right on target, with all five rounds exploding against the ship's flank and resulted in a small secondary explosion. The third burst of five rounds ripped directly into the 57mm gun mount and touched off the ammunition, what little of the ship remained above water disintegrated.

With a sigh, the CO of the _Stalwart_ grabbed the TBS talker. " _Ore Brasil_ , what's your status?" He asked.

" _Could be better, all three auxiliary engines have been destroyed, the main engine is heavily damaged, plus a number of systems are heavily damaged. But as it stands, those bastards would've likely boarded us had the_ Samāgeiru _not showed up when it had, if anything they are the real goddamned heroes because they made sure that those pirates could not board us. I hope to god that they are remembered because they deserve to be remembered._ " The captain of the _Ore Brasil_ said.

"I promise that they will. For they deserve it, moving to pick up survivors from the _Samāgeiru_." The CO of the _Stalwart_ said.

Unbeknownst to anyone, the being known as Q watched as the majority of the crew on the _Samāgeiru_ were entombed in a coffin of twisted and broken steel that was filled with water as it descended into the depths of the ocean never to be seen again. There hadn't been many survivors from the ship sinking, but during that timeframe he had been able to figure out who to pick to have their second chance in the prime universe. It hadn't been easy to pick them but after seeing them in action, he now knew which ones he would pick.

But now a new problem, should he split them up or keep them in the same place in the timeline? There was so _many_ different possibilities and each one had different results, it was something that was so _intriguing_. Who to pick and how to scatter them? He was going to have fun with this, that was going to be a fact.

Still, he was going to have to do quite a bit for them, mainly manufacture a history and Starfleet Academy application. Plus suppress the memories that they had in this timeline to make sure that nothing went horribly wrong.

* * *

 **AN: Hence ends I guess it's part two of the prologue arc. There is going to be a short chapter after this one that wraps up the arc and sets us up for the next arc wherein things start to get complicated.**

 **As for Q being in a different dimension than the Prime Universe? What's to say that since he can bend space, time, and reality itself to his will that he has opened up portals to other dimensions? I surely wouldn't put it past him.**

 **As for the pirates, it was stated that there are more shipping lanes in the Haifuri Universe because of what happened to Japan. Plus piracy has always been an issue, but I went with this so that way you guys wouldn't call bullshit on some guy with a RPG-7 sinking the** ** _Samāgeiru._** **So slightly unrealistic? Maybe. Better than some guy sinking the ship with a Rocket Propelled Grenade? Absolutely.**


	3. New Beginnings

**AN: So we've found out a bit more about how Akeno and Mei got to the Star Trek Online Universe, but now to wrap the prologue arc up.**

* * *

 _Yokosuka Maritime Girls High School_

 _May 10th, 2025_

Events such as this didn't happen often, while training vessels like the _Samāgeiru_ suffered training accidents on occasion and on even rarer occasions had been lost mostly in storms, it was incredibly rare for one to be sunk in combat.

But it had happened, yet for a ship to be lost with almost it's entire crew? Absolutely unheard of; but despite that it had happened. Tears were shed for the twenty-eight brave, young souls who had been snuffed out far too early.

Twenty-eight.

Yokosuka Girls Maritime High School had never lost that many students in a single _decade_ , let alone that many in a school year. It was devastating, twenty-seven families were in deep mourning.

Even the recently repaired _Harekaze_ was in mourning it seemed, her blowers sounding mournful as if the ship itself was sobbing over the loss of the crew that had catapulted the oldest destroyer in the Yokosuka Maritime Girls High School Fleet into fame. The ship was at the quay and her shiny new boilers were being tested but the ship just seemed _sad_ , combined with the fact that the _Harekaze_ was flying the school flag at half-mast just like the rest of the Yokosuka Maritime Girls High School Fleet. It just further invoked the image that the ship was in mourning.

Despite the sorrowful mood, the weather couldn't have been better. It was crisp and cool, with it being mostly cloudy but the sun and sky was visible in some areas poking through the cloud deck. Nearby birds were chirping and a soft breeze was blowing.

"Today...we have gathered here to remember the twenty-eight brave souls who lost their lives commanding the _Samãgeiru_ during a skirmish against the Nightmare Buccaneers, who were targeting the merchant ship MS _Ore Brasil_ with the intention of incapacitating it and boarding it to steal its cargo. Despite being outnumbered and with no support whatsoever, they decided to respond to Ore Brasil's distress signal, which led to the sinking of three enemy sloops and the assurance of enough time being bought for the RSS _Stalwart_ to make it there... They didn't deserve to be taken from us this early in life, when they had such a bright future in front of them," she said, before pausing to take a deep breath to calm herself, as tears started forming in her eyes. "but it seems fate had other plans in store for them. They shall be remembered for their bravery and fearless spirit, choosing to dive into this precarious situation to help someone in need, even when they fully knew they might not make it out of the battle alive," Mayuki said before taking another deep breath, a tear running from her left eye on top of her left cheek. "I watched them all bloom from a distance, their skills becoming incredibly sharp, their unbending will and determination shining like a bright star in the night sky. Even when put into some of the worst positions imaginable, they always pulled through... It is something...I've always admired and I'll always remember. Though they may not walk among us anymore, they shall always remain at our hearts, reminding us what it truly means to be a Blue Mermaid. I'll now relinquish the podium to Moeka China." Mayuki finished and then stepped down, obviously on the verge of breaking down completely, as more and more tears started rolling on her face, the fact that the girls, and especially her daughter, won't be with her anymore weighing greatly on her soul and heart.

Moeka China then stepped up. Instead of her white officer's uniform she wore most of the time, she was dressed in black, and like Mayuki, her eyes were red from crying. "It was hard to believe at first, when I got the message over the wireless, that the _Samãgeiru_ had been sunk with a large loss of life... I still don't want to believe it, if I am honest, but, when it got confirmed with a list of casualties, I was stunned to see that so many had died. Akeno was a very cheerful and energetic person. She always smiled and would face her problems head on, never wavering, never faltering. Some would call her reckless, others would call her careless and carefree, but what I really saw was bravery. Fearlessness. Unwavering resolve. She also was the sort of person who always believed that her crew was essentially her extended family and even if her ship was sinking, as long as there was a single crew member alive left onboard her ship, she wouldn't abandon it, even if it meant her death... And that's the truth with her, she always was willing to put her crew's lives and safety above else, even her own. She was a true hero and I'll never forget that she was always willing to do anything, in order to help others even if it meant putting herself at risk." Moeka said before taking a deep breath, fighting back tears. "One of the most memorable moments that Akeno had, was when she took the _Harekaze_ , just a mere _Kagerō_ class destroyer, up against _Musashi_ , a _Yamato_ class Battleship. Despite knowing full well that the ship still had a lot of live ammunition and that even a single shot in the right place would mean their ends, she and her crew bravely stood their ground. It takes lot of bravery to perform these kind of actions, and I believe we all need to learn from her example, if we want to become better and grasp what being a Blue Mermaid truly means."

The various eulogies continued for the better part of a day, but regardless the entirety of Yokosuka Girls Maritime High School was in mourning over the loss of some of the most well known and best students in the school. It wasn't easy and it was clear that the shock of such a loss would never go away.

For one of the few survivors from the _Samāgeiru_ , Wazumi Hime that was doubly true. She didn't even remember getting off the destroyer as it died, just as a massive concussive blast that sent her flying, followed by a sharp pain on the back of her head which resulted in her blacking out, and then waking up in the _Stalwart_ 's medical bay. The fact that there had only been four survivors, all from the DAMCON team just because they had been in the process of fighting a fire that been below the main deck. It just didn't seem fair, that just the four of them could survive having their ship shot out from under them while the rest of the crew died. It didn't help that the injuries she had suffered were incredibly severe and had resulted in her being paralyzed from the waist down.

"How are you holding up Wazumi?" a voice asked from somewhere behind her. It had a slight stutter to it.

Wazumi turned and saw Sora, for a brief moment Wazumi felt a stab of envy. Sora had gotten off at least compared to her relatively easy, a couple of broken ribs, a fractured femur, and a broken leg. Unlike her, Sora was going to be able to walk again within a couple of months maybe a year at most.

"Not well, the loss of everyone plus my mobility. It's taking a toll, at best I will be able to get a shore position in the Blue Mermaids." Wazumi said hoarsely, tears threatening to spill. Over the course of an hour her dream of joining the Blue Mermaids in a seaside, or as the Americans called it an "At sea posting", position had been shattered.

Worse than that, almost all of her friends were dead. Either blown to bits or as was likely the case for Maron and her Engineering staff, entombed in a water-filled coffin of twisted steel.

"I feel ya, losing twenty-eight family members in just a couple of minutes? Combined with not having a chance to say goodbye? Brutal, just absolutely brutal. It's something I'll never forget." Sora said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, but my dream of becoming a Blue Mermaid in a seaside position is in pieces. Docs say I'll never walk again." Wazumi said, tears beginning to run down her face.

"But let's stay together, that's what crewmembers do, and also I think Akeno would want us to finish our training. Besides after we do finish our training, I don't care if my dream was to get a seaside position. I will get a shoreside position even if it means I am giving up my own dream." Sora crouched down as best she could and put a reassuring hand on Wazumi's shoulder.

Wazumi sighed. "I miss them." she said quietly.

"So do I, but we all knew the risks. But I guess this really drives home how dangerous being a Blue Mermaid really is." Sora replied shaking her head.

"It was never said that it was going to be easy. I thought it would be relatively easy, I was wrong. They always say how much of an adventure it is to be a Blue Mermaid, but they never say how dangerous it is." Wazumi said shaking her head.

"Yeah, but I wonder what happens when you die. Do you just cease existing? Or is their some form of afterlife or hope of reincarnation?" Sora asked.

"I don't know, mainly because what lies beyond this plane of existence is an undiscovered country that is only discovered by those who die and leave this plane of existence." Wazumi admitted.

"Really getting philosophical there Wazumi. But you're right." Sora said before reaching into her backpack and pulling out two bottles of soda. She opened both and then handed one to Wazumi. "To the _Samāgeiru_ and to absent friends." she said.

"To the _Samāgeiru_ and to absent friends." Wazumi replied, before drinking deeply.

* * *

 _Date Unknown_

 _Location Unknown_

Akeno groaned and opened her eyes, it seemed like _everything_ hurt. But the pain was most noticeable across her chest and back, it wasn't unbearable but the pain was most certainly there. That's when she noticed she was laying flat on her back and staring up into what seemed like a white sky.

With a grunt of exertion she sat up. Something was awfully fishy here, at least that's what her instincts as a captain was telling her, but what was it?

"Ugh, my head. It feels like I just introduced it to the deck. Face first." A voice groaned behind her.

Akeno turned around and saw Mei. She too was just starting to sit up and also appeared to be in pain. Akeno stood up and went over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Mei started and then looked up and directly into her captain's eyes.

"C-captain? Is it really you?" She asked in a tone that was at the sametime worried, nervous, and slightly scared.

"Yes Mei, it's me. Got any idea what happened?" Akeno asked, helping her friend to her feet and then she looked around. The area around them was as vast as the ocean and just as featureless, with a stark whiteness all around them.

"Not one clue, last thing I recall was hearing a loud bang and then feeling a sharp blow to my head and then I am coming around here. Where are we then?" Mei replied.

"Honestly I have no idea. Let's try and find a couple of the others." Akeno said, looking around.

"Still, I guess you can say that this is another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into." Mei said and Akeno laughed.

"Yeah, we do have a penchant for getting ourselves into messes such as this. I don't know why though, it seems that stuff like this _always_ happens to us and never to anyone else. But if anything the _Ore Brasil_ certainly got out of their, thanks to the arrival of the _Stalwart_." Akeno replied shaking her head.

"Captain, Mei!" A voice said behind them.

Akeno and Mei turned in the direction of the voice and spotted three more people walking towards them: Rin, Mashiro, and Kaburagi. The three of them looked just as confused as Akeno and Mei were, but they also appeared to be grateful as well.

"Rin, Mashiro, Kaburagi! What are you three doing here?" Akeno asked confused at the sight of her crew members.

Mashiro, and Rin shrugged. "No idea." They said in unison while Kaburagi nodded in response.

"What happened then?" Akeno asked.

That's when a new voice spoke up. "Oh to put it simply, you all died. But I am willing to provide a second chance."

The five of them jumped and turned towards the source of the voice. What they saw confused them, standing five feet away was a rather handsome man, in a rather bizarre uniform. It was primarily red and black, with the shoulder area being red, while the long-sleeves, collar, and the rest of shirt was black, the same went for the pants and shoes, they too were black. On the shirt collar however, was what appeared to be four small gold pins and there was another pin on the shirt's chest, to specific on the right side, it was a simple silver upward arrow with two small gold rectangles on either side of it.

"Who are you?" Akeno asked in a tone that clearly meant " _tell me now._ ". The other girls looked at her shocked, they had rarely heard her use that tone of voice. Usually when she saw something extremely stupid just occur and she wanted to know what the hell they were thinking. Of course there had been other times as well but they were rather rare.

"Why my name is Q." The man said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Kaburagi raised an eyebrow at the method of delivery of that statement. Rin looked absolutely confused and befuddled. Akeno was fairly certain that she had a similar look on her face. Mei cocked her head and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

Mashiro was a lot more obvious with her confusion. "Who?" she asked.

"What? You mean you never heard of me? Reality-bender, master of time and space, capable of jumping between Universes at will?" The being known as "Q" asked.

"Err, no." Akeno said confused.

Before Q could reply to that statement, Rin spoke up and asked a _very good_ question. "That doesn't make any sense, if we did in fact die. Then why the hell do we not look like the way we did when we did die?" Rin asked confused.

"For some that maybe the case. But that is neither here or their, as for your other question. You did in fact die." Q said in a tone that was way too smug for Akeno's liking.

"What proof do you have of that?" Mashiro asked confused.

"Why this." Q replied before snapping his fingers. With a brilliant flash of white light, the stark whiteness of their surroundings vanished. In its place was a dark gloom that seemed to encompass all, with the exception of the "ground" which was now replaced by thick brown silt.

"Alright, where the hell are we?" Mei asked looking around.

"I am not entirely sure. But it sure looks weird." Kaburagi muttered blankly.

"No idea." Rin said.

Mashiro just looked confused at what was happening.

"I am not seeing any evidence that says we're dead. So now what Q, where's your proof?" Akeno snapped.

"Move forward about a hundred paces and you'll see." Q replied in that incredibly smug tone of his. Personally it made Akeno want to smack him, just to wipe the smug look off his face, she would absolutely _enjoy_ doing that.

"Captain!" Mei suddenly shouted in shock.

Akeno went over to Mei. "What is it?" she asked.

"I see something, I can't tell what it is though." The torpedo chief replied pointing in a general direction. Akeno looked and sure enough, there seemed to be an object, it was vague in shape, the surrounding air or, no, it couldn't be air otherwise they would be able to see it by now easily, _water_ , which meant this was the _seafloor_ , was darker than the rest of the surrounding water.

But _how_? How was that _even possible_!

Akeno walked closer to the vague shape. Whatever it was, it's former began to get sharper and sharper. Then it appeared like a ghost, a ship and one that had been recently sunk as well for despite her obvious battle damage, the ship still wore the remains of a dark grey and red paint scheme and there was _Kanji_ emblazoned on the ship's side, the ship wasn't lying on an even keel, but more like fifteen degrees to port. The ship had clearly been a warship, from the looks of it a destroyer of some description. However she had been absolutely _thrashed_.

It's hull was completely shattered with the vast majority of the bow and pilothouse simply gone, what metal remained forward of where Gun Number One used to be curled away from the gaping wound signaling that a massive internal explosion had ripped the bow apart. Meanwhile both of the Skipper High Performance Launches had been completely blasted away, the cranes that had once supported them were either gone or horrifically twisted. The mainmast was quite frankly gone, nowhere to be seen, the wide variety of steel cables that the thing had supported were now draped across the wreck and were swaying in the deep ocean currents slightly. By some freakish miracle however, her forward funnel was still standing but the thing had several holes in it. The same could not be said for the forward portside guntub, whatever weapon it had contained was smashed beyond all recognition and the tub itself was a pitiful broken wreck. Between the two funnels was the shattered remains of a torpedo mount, the primary area for the operator laid open like a sardine can that had been introduced to a can opener and only two individual tubes remained with one horrifically askew while the others were just completely gone. The aft funnel was in worse shape than the forward one, with a pair of spectacular wounds in the base on the portside as well several wounds in the main body of the funnel. The aft portside guntub was again a shattered wreck as was the weapon that had once been held within. The aft torpedo mount was in semi-decent shape at first glance, but a closer look revealed that the enclosed operator area had been riddled by shrapnel. Then they found that the ship just ended an ugly mass of twisted steel rested some thirty feet behind the aft torpedo mount, it _had been_ the ship's stern but now it rested in pieces completely and utterly demolished. The damage was absolutely incredible, to the point that it appeared that the stern had almost been snapped off by some great explosive force. Several great cracks that were in the stern testified to that.

"Magazine detonations both fore and aft. Malfunctions occurred in the safety features both times, forward for the most part the safety features did their job but the blast completely wrecked the forward section of the ship and the pilothouse. Aft the measures look like they barely functioned at _all_. They worked in the fact that the blast was directed upwards but only just enough to stop the detonation of a magazine from completely blasting the stern right off the ship. The aft magazine detonation most likely snapped the ship's back like a twig, although to be fair the forward detonation had likely done the same thing. Wait, actually I think that the ready drums for the aft guns went off but it caused a sympathetic explosion and set off the ship's load of depth charges." Mei said in meek tone.

"What was this ship's name though? This lady doesn't look like she's been on the bottom for a long time, maybe a week or two at most." Rin asked as she walked up closer to the ship.

"H-her name is _Samāgeiru_ , it's our ship Captain." Mashiro said quietly stunned.

"What?!" Akeno asked stunned before running to where her executive officer was standing, which was practically alongside the hull. She promptly sank to her knees when she saw the _Kanji_ emblazoned on the ship's side in still very much readable if somewhat blackened white paint: サマーゲイル.

No doubt, this ship was the _Samāgeiru_. With that _kanji_ emblazoned on her side, there was no arguing against it. The ship was in fact the one they had been on during their engagement against those pirates. "We really did die." Akeno whispered, looking at the shattered wreck.

"But if we did, then why are we here?" Rin asked confused and also a little scared.

"Why that's so you can have another chance. One that you all deserve to have." Q said simply.

"But why the hell would you offer us that! We've been through so damn much!" Mei snapped angrily.

"Why that's incredibly simple. Your iron hard determination, readiness to help others in need, and naturally your skill set. Plus the afterlife is incredibly dull." Q said.

Kaburagi looked around and saw how Akeno and Rin were more than a little terrified at what had happened, Mashiro was sitting her head in her hands, and Mei appeared to be just plain angry. Then again something had told her that yes they were all dead.

"Alright Q, what's your offer." Kaburagi said with all the curtness and seriousness that only a professional, certified doctor could muster.

Q grinned slightly. "My offer is quite simple, instead of going to the afterlife. You go to a new universe. One that's far more advanced and where here interstellar travel is but a pipe dream, their it's a fact of life. It's filled with excitement, wonders like none you've ever seen, countless adventures, and of course dangers as well. Think you can handle it?" he said.

Truth be told it was an incredibly tempting offer, another chance at life. It sounded almost too good to be true. If it was too good to be true then it probably was. "Alright, what's the catch? Be honest." she asked.

Q huffed somewhat indignantly. "You doctors are all the same, trying to suck the fun out of life. But yes, there is a catch. You'll be scattered across the timeline, with two in the 23rd Century, one in the 24th Century, and the other two in the 25th Century. You all will serve in an intrical part of history at a critical point in time, the thing is you won't know what that point in time will be until it occurs. But fate will see it so that you will all meet each other eventually." He said with a grin.

Mashiro who had stood up and walked over with look that clearly meant she was curious on face. "Something tells me that their is more to this than your telling us."

"Do you seriously want me to ruin all of the surprises?" Q asked.

"No, I want to know only a few. Like how the heck are we going to go exploring and being able to do interstellar travel?" Mashiro asked.

"I won't reveal how FTL works, but your going to become members of an organization dedicated to exploration and on occasion becoming soldiers, that organization is called Starfleet. If you become an officer you can have your own ship in anywhere between five and eight years maybe even in less time than that depending on the ship class. You all want to make a difference in the world? Think bigger, try making a difference in a _galaxy_ , because even far out into the future there are those who need help and protection. Threats to freedom, peace, justice, etc. Never ever say "no" to the chance to have an adventure, always say "yes" to the chance have an adventure, otherwise you'll lead an extremely dull and boring life." Q said with a flourish, all but daring them to accept his offer/challenge.

The girls looked to each other awkwardly, it was an incredible offer. "Should we do it?" Akeno asked.

"It's a massive opportunity. One doesn't get a second chance at life all that often." Mashiro said in a firm tone.

"I do agree, it's a rare opportunity and chances like this are extremely rare. Besides, it'll be fun and exciting; I mean I have wondered what's out there beyond our solar system." Mei replied in far too eager of a tone.

Kaburagi shrugged before speaking. "What's death or in this case lease on life, but the next great adventure? I am in." she said calmly.

Akeno turned back to face the being known as Q, fiery determination blossoming in her eyes. "Alright Q, we accept your challenge."

Q grinned and raised his right hand. "Excellent, I wish you luck on your adventures because your going to need it." he said.

Akeno had just enough time to think _What does he mean by that?_ Before Q snapped his fingers and a blinding white flash overtook her vision. In an instant shooting the crew members of the _Samāgeriu_ that he had selected for this second chance at life across dimensions as well as space and time. Suppressing old memories and adding new ones to compensate for the knowledge that they would need for their new lives.

Q then took one last look at the shattered remains of the _Samāgeriu_ and sighed at the fact that he couldn't save all of them. Only the select few that he had would work, such was the whims of a being such as himself. Regardless those he had selected would have adventures beyond their wildest dreams and who knew, maybe he would actually pop in every once and in awhile. Just to see how they were doing and maybe even send them on adventures periodically.

* * *

 _Onboard Atmospheric Passenger Shuttle 467_

 _Stardate 357010_

As the blinding flash dissipated from her vision. Akeno noticed to her shock that her surroundings as well as her dress had changed drastically. She was onboard an aircraft of some description, it's engine was rumbling contentedly as the craft descended. The changes to her dress was just as drastic, gone was her old dress in its place was a tunic made out of a reflective silver or grey material with a black collar and was wearing black trousers. Emblazoned on the right breast of the tunic was a ten-pointed star the points of the star were a sort of teal while the core was red, sown into the emblem in gold thread was the words _Ex Astris, Scientia_. From what little she knew about Latin, it meant "From the Stars, Knowledge".

Resting in her lap was a large duffle bag, sighing she opened it and found what she had been expecting, a couple more outfits like the one she was wearing, two outfits that were significantly more dressy from the look of it, some casual wear, their was also a device roughly the size and shape of a first-Gen iPad Mini, and a picture frame that contained an image of her crew. It was a connection to her past life, one that she would hold close to her heart.

 _Not much, but it'll have to do._ Akeno thought before she glanced to the right and started slightly at who was sitting next to her.

Mainly because sitting next to her, looking bored was Kaburagi. She was wearing the same uniform that she was which made Akeno realize that it was likely the Academy uniform or something of that nature. She looked at Akeno and smiled pleasantly. If anything that was good news, she seemed to be at ease. Which was a good thing Akeno supposed. Just like herself however, she also had a duffle bag sitting in her lap.

Then whatever craft she was on pitched hard to one side and then she saw it spreading out below her. An incredible looking city, with absolutely immense skyscrapers climbing upwards towards the sky, towards the center was a tiny island with what looked like a cluster of buildings on it. But what really grabbed Akeno's attention was the massive suspension bridge that spanned the entrance of the bay with a glittering International Orange paint scheme.

There was only _one_ bridge in the entire world that was painted in that color which meant they could only be in one place. The bay below was thus San Francisco Bay which meant that the city with its incredible skyscrapers was none other than the world famous "The City by the Bay" otherwise known as San Francisco. If she looked carefully, she could make out some famous landmarks like the Transamerica Pyramid and the Salesforth Tower in the skyline. Looking absolutely tiny among the new buildings that now dominated the San Francisco Skyline but regardless they stood standing out like beacons of a remembrance to older times when Super-Skyscrapers and Mega-Skyscrapers weren't a thing yet.

Then they completed their turn and ran to the south, skirting the edge of the bay before turning again as they completed their turn. The city of Oakland dominated her field of view. "It's incredible," she mused aloud.

"Indeed it is Akeno, still here we are about to go to Starfleet Academy and start our officer training. Any idea what you're striving for?" she asked.

Akeno thought about that, honestly she wasn't sure. True enough from what she knew, she had scored high enough on the various entrance exams so that she could go through the Command School if she wanted too. Get put on a fast track for a starship command and probably by the mid-to-late 2260s have her own command, by the late 2270s she hoped to be eligible for a Five-Year Mission. But that was a level of dedication and work that was several steps above what everyone else went through when they were going through the Academy. For the first time though, Akeno felt anxiety well up inside her at the thought of going through what was effectively college.

"The Command School, at least that's my hope." Akeno replied.

"You do realize that in the Command School, you'll have all of your regular classes _plus_ the command courses? It's effectively double the work." Kaburagi asked surprised.

"True, but I guess it's safe to say that I wouldn't mind commanding a starship some day. Going out and seeing the stars, going to new places, meeting new life, that sort of thing." Akeno replied as the thrum from the shuttle's engines changed in pitch. The craft, pitched up slightly as it continued to descend ever downwards. The city below was growing near constantly as it did so, the eve of a new life.

It was a strange feeling Akeno mused as with a thunk and then a whirring sound went through the hull as what could only be the landing gear deployed. The shuttle glided into a hanger and then it maneuvered deftly, backing up into a slot before coming down onto it's landing gear with a muffled clang.

" _We have arrived at Starfleet Academy, your cleared to disembark._ " The pilot of the shuttle said as with a hiss the boarding ramp forward opened and swung downwards.

The dozens of people throughout the shuttle stood and started collecting their things. Akeno slung her duffle over her shoulder, it was just like carrying a Seabag she mused as she waited for a moment to allow Kaburagi to grab something from the overhead compartment.

That something turned out to be another bag which she slung over her shoulder and then she stepped into the flow of foot traffic that was moving to get off the shuttle. Akeno stepped up and then when she saw an opening stepped into the path and started walking forward.

She stepped off the shuttle and into a crowded, loud, and cavernous room. Akeno looked around and spotted several other shuttles like the one she just disembarked from. Most incredible though was the throng of people that was composed of various species, that strode with purpose.

Akeno looked up and spotted the sign that indicates where the exit was. Sighing she started walking towards the exit of the hanger, her new life laying ahead of her and with it the dawn of a new adventure. For some reason the ancient Chinese proverb "May you live in interesting times." came to mind, something told her that the years ahead of her were going to be incredibly interesting.

The next step was harder mainly because of the fact that she had to wait in line so that she could find out where she was in the dorms. Once she got to the door, she was greeted by man dressed in a light brown button up shirt and trousers. "Name?" he asked in a flat voice.

"Akeno Misaki."

He scrolled through his list before finding her name. "Orion Housing Complex, building two, floor one, room ten." He said dully, handing Akeno something about the size keychain pennant. On it was her building and room number, meaning it was probably an electronic key of some description.

"Thanks." she replied, adjusting the grip on her duffle bag and then left the hanger.

Something nagged at her though, the feeling that she was about to become apart of something that was _much_ bigger than she was. It was something that bugged her but she just couldn't put her finger on _why_ she felt the way she did.

After following the signs, she found her way to the Orion Housing Complex. It wasn't much honestly as it looked like a typical apartment building. The rooms themselves were fairly small, five by five meters with two beds and two desks. Not much, but it sufficed for its purpose, also attached to the room was a small bathroom with shower that was two-point-seven meters by one-and-half meters. When she arrived though, she noted that she was the first one to arrive at her dorm, for the lack of a better word.

Her roommate was a Caitian, they were a relatively new member of the United Federation of Planets; having only joined the Federation a few years ago. She'd never seen one in person though, would be interesting she supposed.

* * *

 **AN: Now I bet you're wondering what the hell is up with that Stardate. Personally I've always found the Stardates extremely hard to follow when it comes to figuring out the actual date. Thus I devised a six number system that's (hopefully) much easier to follow and remember. The first number detonates the century, the second number detonates the decade, the third number is the year within the decade, and the last three numbers is the day in the year. So the first Stardate seen means that it's the 23rd Century, 57th year, 10th day of the year. Nice and easy to remember.**


End file.
